'Marriage, not conversion, so Jais has no standing'

COMMENT The Malaysian Consultative Council of Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Sikhism and Taoism (MCCBCHST) is appalled to read that Jais had gone into a Hindu temple and stopped a marriage ceremony from taking place, on the grounds that the bride to be was a Muslim as she had a Muslim name Zarena Abdul Majid.

The bride-to-be has said that her mother V Vasandamma is Hindu and her father, known as Mahendran, had converted to Islam without their knowledge and also registered her with a Muslim name.

On discovering this, she has been trying to change her name in her IC to a Hindu name but without any success. The bride further added that her parents were divorced about 25 years ago and Mahendran has not kept in touch with them.

The bride also clearly stated that since birth she is a practising Hindu.

Going by the facts, the action of Jais was high handed and lacked understanding. Why barge into a wedding, when if there was any contravention of law, Jais could have taken action later.

Jais’s claim that it acted under the Non-Islamic Religious (Control of Propagation Against Muslims) Enactment 1988 which makes it an offence to persuade, influence or incite any Muslim to change their faith, is flawed and illegal, as follows:

1. Act is inapplicable as the ceremony was a marriage ceremony and not conversion to or from an Islam ceremony. The legality of the marriage is another matter.
    
2. JAIS has only jurisdiction, under Schedule 9 of the Federal Constitution over persons professing the religion of Islam.
    
3. “Professing religion” here means by repute, that is, what the person holds him or herself to be, and what faith he is practising according to his neighbours and society. Here clearly the bride has only practised Hinduism since birth until today.
    
4. The freedom of religion guarantee provided under Article 11 has been violated by Jais, as her case did not fall under exception in Article 11(4) (i.e. propagation of other faiths to a Muslim)
    
5. The bride’s purported conversion is illegal because she was never present and did not utter words of conversion. 

Jais must act rationally and with compassion and learn to follow the rule of law. Jais should not have interfered with the marriage ceremony but could have taken legal steps after such occurrence, if it felt it had a reasonable case.

Right thinking Malaysians must deplore this action of Jais as interfering with the affairs of other religions.

 The solution

The MCCBCHST has consistently stated that a single parent cannot be allowed to convert an underage child. This was also the cabinet decision on 23/09/2009 that a single parent cannot convert a child under 18 years of age.

This problem was crystallised by case of  Subashini v Saravanan [2008] 2CLJ 1 [FC], where the Federal Court held (2-1 decision) that word parent in Article 12(4)  meant single parent. This has opened the floodgates for abuse.

This case is unsatisfactory because:

1. It failed to apply Article 160(1) Eleventh Schedule regarding interpretation of words:
   
   “Construction of singular or plural – words in the singular include the plural, and words in plural include singular."
   
   (Note: Therefore word “parent” would read “both parents”.)
    
2. Guardianship of Infants Act 1961 which provides for equality of parental rights.
    
3. It would also produce the absurd result that the other parent, too could convert the child back, based on the Federal Court decision.
    
4. A further absurd result can be seen for Article 12(4) says “...the religion of a person under age of eighteen years shall be decided by ‘his’ parent or guardian”.
   
   Now, if we do not apply the interpretation section which says “words importing the masculine gender include females”, then ‘his’ in Article 12(4) would mean that the parent can only convert ‘males’ and not ‘females’.
    

In our case, the bride is a female, and as such the father had no right to convert her based on reasoning in Subashini’s case, if the interpretation section was not invoked.

As such the solution is:

1. The cabinet based on its decision should introduce an appropriate amendment to define "parent" as including both parents, or
    
2. The Federal Court revisiting case of Subashini and using the Interpretation section to say "parent" means both parents.

 Therefore, it is MCCBCHST’s humble appeal to the authorities and the learned judiciary to rectify this unhappy and absurd situation, as soon as possible.

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JAGIR SINGH is president of MCCBCHST.